How UK voters feel about Brexit – 9 years later
Most Britons see Brexit as having been more of a failure than a success, but they tend not to see trying to return as a priority.
This is according to new data published by YouGov, which polled the views of voters on Brexit almost a decade later. 23 June marks nine years since the UK voted to leave the European Union.
YouGov polling has long since shown that the public are ‘Bregretful’ about that outcome, with the latest survey showing 56% think it was wrong for Britain to vote to leave the EU. Only 31% continue to say this was the right decision, although two-thirds of Leave voters (68%) still believe they made the right choice.
Who do Britons blame for Brexit going badly?
Most Britons say that Brexit has been more of a failure than a success (61%), with 20% saying it has neither been a success nor failure and 13% seeing it as more of a success.
But who do those Britons who see Brexit as a failure blame for this? The Conservative party and Boris Johnson top the list, with 88% and 84% respectively laying the blame at their door.
Two-thirds attribute blame to Prime Ministers Theresa May (66%) and Rishi Sunak (64%), with a similar number saying so for Nigel Farage (67%).
One in three (37%) blame the European Union for Brexit going badly, including 60% of Leave voters. Keir Starmer (28%) and Labour (39%) come in for less blame, as do the UK civil service (30%).
Blame for Keir Starmer and Labour, the civil service, and the EU is higher among Conservative, Reform and Leave voters, although it is worth noting that only around a third of these groups say (or are willing to admit) that Brexit has been a failure so far. In any case, even among these voters, Boris Johnson and the Conservatives still take the largest portion of blame for Brexit going badly.
With Brexit widely seen as having been more of a failure, it is no surprise to see that almost two thirds of Britons now want to see a closer relationship with the European Union (65%) – a stance that is popular across all main parties (51-78%), as well as among Leave voters (60%).
Most Britons want to see the UK return to the EU (56%), although this does not include many of those who voted to leave it in the first place (24%) or among the Tory (28%) and Reform UK electorates (16%).
While most Britons may support a return to the EU, they are less convinced that it is a priority at the current time. More than four in ten (44%) said attempting a ‘Breturn’ would be the wrong priority for the government at the current time, when balanced against the other issues the UK currently faces, compared to 37% who believe it would be the right priority.
